Now, fire marshals and the police are starting an investigation and are collecting evidence.

I went back there coincidentally at the same time as fire marshals and park rangers to take pictures of the area.

I was appalled by what I saw. Shame on all of you. As a former paintballer back-weeds, at least we cleaned up!

There was tons of trash. Hundreds of beer cans, plastic and glass bottles, barb wire, plywood, mattresses, tarps, chairs, and a ladder. On top of that, imagine all of that burnt down. Apparently there was alot more garbage back there because the rangers already started to clean up. They even cashed in a keg.

the pics are reality.it depicts reality. they make it look worse becuase it does look like crap. and now your blaming the fdny for making the mess? ballsy get back there with gloves and a garbabe bag and clean it up.

I look at this picture and just don’t know what to says . I saw the condition of the fields on video before the fire and now see this , they look nothing a like . I’m sure the fire dept had to spread out the debris in order to put out the fire but no , they’re not the one’s who put it there in the first place . IBW has stated many times that other people hang out at their ring , unfortunately this is the price you pay . It was your ring , your responsible for whatever happen at it . If you really want the respect of the people of Gerritsen beach and their support Pleases clean up your mess . If your afraid that by going back there the park dept might give you a ticket for trespassing , Talk to Gerritsen beach cares . I’m sure they can work thing out for you with the park dept as far as you are being allowed to cleaning up the area . You’ve had your fun now it time to give back something .

this is dumb, there investigating what, a fire? backweeds? thats just stupid. what are they going do, take finger and footprints. everyone in gerritsen has been back there, they can’t do anything. waste of tax payers money. I bet the only reason there even saying there investigating this is becase parks department did lit this fire and don’t want to get caught. everyone who has been back weeds as a kid knows the parks department burns everything they find, because it’s cheaper than getting people to clean it up and rent the bull doser

ok again, im a fan of ibw. i have been back there multiple times and i do agree that the ring was a mess. most of the stuff there like the ladders and chairs, even some barb wire was used for props. other stuff would appear during the week,that had nothing to do with us. ibw was very proud of their ring in fact they did clean that ring constantly. every few months in town members of ibw went there with garbage bags and cleaned up around the ring to make it look more presentable. we even had a trash can back there, but again either high winds or the people who use our ring as a hang out and drinking spot kept knocking it over and tossing it and all its contents around.

Again, it was a mess, you’re right, I won’t lie about that, but the mattresses, ring posts and other props such as chairs ladders, barbwire and chainlink fence, were all used in IBW related info, How can we have fans sit around the ring without chairs, or even have us sit down after our matches, so we had chairs, and tables, and make-shift benches set up (with milk crates and wood and the like) but it was not as bad as this looks when the fire was burnt, Although yes, there was an abundance of can related trash and the other such things but we only wrestle there once a week, this trash seems to grow week in and week out from other people using our area, and evidently we’re not responsible for it? So now you want us to take responcibility for land that we’re, in theory, on illegally, and are getting kicked off of. Either let us use the area, and agree that we have to keep it clean, or don’t let us use it at all.

I am not surprised anymore about the stupidity in the comments made here by mental midgets like John and Paul. John, you want to blame the FDNY for that mess? Do me a favor and tap a Firefighter on the shoulder and tell him just how you feel. If he doesn’t knock your teeth out, then you can thank him for risking his life everyday for morons like you. And Paul, thanks for enlightening us about the Serial Arsonists known as the Parks Department. Most of us never knew they ran around “….burning everything they find”. I bet the two of you are identical twins, and the both of you had an umbilical cord wrapped around your necks at birth preventing oxygen to the brain. What other explanation can be given for such stupidity???

Maybe the Parks Department & the FDNY were the ones who used the ring & make it a mess the rest of the week! Huge conspiracy…you could call “Shame on You” or someone to investigate. (That was sarcasm.)

Seriously though, you clear a patch of brush, set up a ring, bring furniture for fans to sit on & don’t expect random kids looking for a place to hang out & drink to use it when you’re not there? If you cleaned up after yourselves every time you used the ring & carted everything away no one could have messed it up. Leave your belongings in a public place & someone is going to use them/take them whatever.

Fine you guys didn’t make the mess, but you did create the environment for other people to do so. Regardless of the trespassing or illegality of the wrestling, be men about it & own up to your responsibility – CLEAN IT UP!

i am a wrestler in ibw
we love wreslting and ur takin it way from us. now u see theres nothin u can do to find the peeps that burnt down the ring cuz it sure aint me or any others from ibw that i no
now there is one thing that i wanna no and that is what do we have to do as a community of IBW to be allowd to wrestle again
and i no some of the responses r gonna be that its illegal or that we make a mess and need to clean it up
but what if we r able to clean up the mess and show u what we do out in the weeds and how much it means to us
just remember for some of us ibw is our life so pleez dont take that from us

I have a way to solve this whole mess once and for all. I am going to throw out an open challenge to th IBW. If they want some they can com get themselves a taste of “The Castle” . If you think you can handle the Sexton Driver or the Checkmate, then come on down and I’ll be waiting. Bring whatever you got and whoever you got because I will tear down the cockpit door, IBW. Remove the Pilots who have already made the sacrifice, IBW. Take over the controls and shove that plane into a nosedive, IBW. Only then will you realize you are close to parts unknown, GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

(Wanted to post my comment on the previous article, but the comments were disabled, so here goes.)
This is absolutely ridiculous. As a part of IBW, I can honestly say that the wrestlers loved what they did. You are ridiculing these people for something that they held close to them. Although you may not agree with it 100%, you could at least respect it. This isn’t a “problem” and we don’t want to participate in “Sporting Events”, we want to WRESTLE. And as far as the mess goes, it was NOT half as bad as the pictures are depicting. I think you need to get a life, and stop stalking kids who just want to do what they love. Concentrate on bigger problems in Gerritsen Beach. So what? A bunch of us get together once a week and wrestle. Not to mention all the money we’ve put into the ring, put to make a stable ring, buy supplies, etc.. Obviously if we are putting all this time and effort into something we are so passionate about don’t you think it means that much to us? If you can think of something that you are passionate about.. just think about it… you do everything to pursue it. Let us do the same. We would all love to pay $3,000 for pro training, but we don’t have it. Until then, we would like to just do our thing.

” If you really want the respect of the people of Gerritsen beach and their support Pleases clean up your mess”

Like he said if your afraid of getting in trouble then talk to Gerritsen beach cares .

They can work thing out for you with the park dept as far as you are being allowed to cleaning up the area .

However I don’t think if The DEP or Parks rolled up on you with shovels & plastic bags they would be to opposed to you cleaning up the site

I would say by cleaning up the mess no matter who’s responcible would be a good start.

Maybe in the spring if you guys kept it down to a mild party & removed you stuff when you left at the end of your exersizes no one would be none the wiser of your presence there & you would have no problem.

What it basicly comes down to is if you moved your fence over & started to build on my land I would have something to say about it too

I know that’s not the issue here but still you would have more support from the people if you did help out

You have to realize that their where people who did clean up in IBW. Before the shows, and after the shows. But allot have stopped due to the trash that kept coming into IBW. It was all fun an games and everything, no one was getting messy until all the new outside members who started coming into IBW. They have no respect for the land, the Federation, I even started to stop caring about what my responsibilities in IBW where, and rarely even worked on helping IBW out. If anything, I say they did this to themselves, and though I didn’t want to see this happen to the federation I helped build up to the point it is today with MY CLOSE FRIENDS who all put their hearts, blood and time into this. To keep having this show go on week by week.

Even with the new people who started coming in (Most of which I do not even know, or know why they where even wrestling in this federation). They started just dropping trash on the flour, no one cleaned up anymore, look at all the old videos before all the new members who came in in the season of 2007. Look at how the placed looked. It was much cleaner, I’m not blaming all the new guys. But instead I’m blaming IBW. Thou non the less the Parkies where going to do the same thing with out without the mess. But without it, you all would have been looking at another side of this, showing more of a better light.

I had been saying stuff like this for months. No one listened. And I hear, you all are starting the Federation up again in another spot, I will refused to wrestle in that Federation (And on that note I would rather you not be using the name IBW, you all need to stop hanging on the veterans of IBWs coattails, non of you have done what we did, and never will, your just using the name as a way to get hits on YouTube because we where the federation on CNN, and in 2005 the season you all like too SAY you where a part of when all the crazy Hardcore stuff was, truth is there are only 6 people even left in IBW who are from that season, so lose the name your not IBW). And this is not the IBW I want to be a part of, most of you don’t even care about what is going on, and want all this good stuff for you to happen, and bitch and complain when its not going your way. How about you all think about it like this, maybe if you started taking care of whatever was at hand instead of not doing anything and just bitching about it. Maybe this wouldn’t be like the way it is.

You all need to think about this, even those of you not a part of IBW, who are speaking on their behalf. And for those of you who are speaking ill minded of IBW, just think about now with out it, all the kids as you say (though most members in IBW where over the age of 18, and out of highschool and in college) what of them now? Will you be their to support their new weekend activities of drinking on the ave, or random spray painting, or letting out their aggression on your property or homes? I think you all would much rather them be doing something like that, then doing what they where keeping themselves off the streets and out of trouble.

You all earned this.
And good luck to you all who continue to Backyard, and talk about how one day you will go pro, but never will. Thus is the life of a everyday Yardtard hanging on to a logo that your not even working to keep.

holy crap do you guys really take pride in being aired on CNN as a collection of social abortions?! Let me get this straight: you guys illegally build a wrestling ring in a public park, then throw in some barbed wire, chairs, milk crates and even a keg and say it’s a “professional” back yard federation. First off there is no such thing as a “professional back yard fed.” You don’t get paid and you were never professionally trained. If all of you love the wrestling idea, instead of buying parts for a crappy ring that sits outside in the weather, join a wrestling gym and learn how to properly wrestle. Or is it not cool enough because you can’t smack some one in the face with a light tube or barbed wire? How professional could you people possibly have been if you had no consideration for some one else’s health? For Christ sakes I have seen some one lit on fire!

May God spare the day that some one gets fatally or permanently injured because I would hate to hear about a teenager dieing or being paralyzed by his freak show friends and hobbies.

OK now you showed people how “crazy” you people are. How convincing do you sound now as you try to persuade me/every one that all that garbage isn’t yours? To tell you the truth guy, you’re not convincing any one…the slightest.

And here is a suggestion for all the young adults (and i say adults loosely) who say “if we don’t have wrestling we don’t have anything.” Uhhh try looking for a decent job for yourselves on the weekends or make a band or something. It’s a lot better than making fake names and wearing costumes in back weeds of Gerritsen. Heck it might even make you people look and sound intelligent.

On that note I leave with this to say. I’m actually happy you all got a summons, I delighted that your little freak show is out of the neighborhood, and I really can’t wait for the day you all grow up and realize that you were degenerates for the better half of your lives.

And if you would’ve read all the comments, then you can see all this was said before:

Most of us do not take pride in IBW being on CNN, we bring it up to show that we’ve had a lot of publicity, and that IBW has been around for years, not that we’re prided in it. The article on CNN was just as bias as it wanted to be, I was interviewed for 20 minutes and wasn’t even mentioned or put on the show. Why? Because I graduated High School with an above 90 average on time and participated in many extracurricular activities, and I was currently enrolled in Hunter College, and working a well paying job, but my 20 minute interview meant nothing because I didn’t enjoy the weapon usage and the extreme aspect of wrestling.

No where in any of this post, or any comment do we call ourselves a professional backyard wrestling federation. In fact we didn’t even say we were pro wrestlers. We said some of us have had Pro training, myself included, but choose to wrestle here because it’s a social atmosphere.

Wrestling in Gerritsen Beach has been going on way before IBW was around, I was wrestling in Gerritsen Beach since when most of the wrestlers now weren’t even fans. Since we used to grab mattresses from the trash in Marine Park and carry them on our backs all the way to someones yard, and then the day of the show lay them down as a ring. I was wrestling in Gerritsen Beach for the past 8 years. Would you like me to show you tapes?

You can’t say we’re not convincing everyone. And i personally never said the “trash” isn’t ours. I said, that things being displayed in the photo weren’t trash, they were part of our wrestling ring, and because when whoever set the fire and put it out decided to pull things out and throw things around and wreck things it looks a lot worse then it does… let me go into your living room and tear open your couch and book shelves and files and throw them all on the floor and then tell me that there’s not a mess, because that’s what happened here.

You tell us to get a job, when all of the older kids in IBW do have jobs that pay decent if not well, and on top of that, tell me what are you hobbies? Well instead of walking your dog down the avenue to the pet shop to see santa, you should be out working, because what you do in your free time i’m sure isn’t going backweeds to go birdwatching.

I hope, now that you’re old and warn out, you regret not living life to your fullest when you were in your prime, and when you’re in you’re fifties and have a heartattack or a stroke or your knees hurt, and it’s hard to get out of bed, and your doctor tells you to go on a diet, you think back to all the dreams you had when you were young and gave up on them to be a dental hygienist or whatever job you decide to do, instead of being a rockstar, a ballerina, a dancer, a singer, an actor, a Musician or any other performer that we’ve all dreamed of being, and hey, who are you to judge that we found people who share our dream and get to live it everyday.

Happy Holidays to you to hope you get everything you want, including a clue.

â€œholy crap do you guys really take pride in being aired on CNN as a collection of social abortions?!â€
I bet you take pride in your trashy life style, and lower form of unintelligent talk.

â€œLet me get this straight: you guys illegally build a wrestling ring in a public park, then throw in some barbed wire, chairs, milk crates and even a keg and say itâ€™s a â€œprofessionalâ€ back yard federation. First off there is no such thing as a â€œprofessional back yard fed.â€ You donâ€™t get paid and you were never professionally trained. If all of you love the wrestling idea, instead of buying parts for a crappy ring that sits outside in the weather, join a wrestling gym and learn how to properly wrestle.â€
Who said we where professional? I mean to be honest you sound like a moron, and I got paid before for doing â€œBackyardâ€ and I myself was trained basics from pro wrestlers (IE Tie-Ups, Bumps, Rope Running, etc.). And I do love the wrestling idea, which is why Iâ€™m joining in with Victory Pro Wrestling to get pro training to become a licenced professional wrestler.

â€œOr is it not cool enough because you canâ€™t smack some one in the face with a light tube or barbed wire?â€
That is very untrue most companies that you work with through your early years, or most major wrestling companies outside of the USA all us lightubes, and barbwire, and host landmine deathmatches (which there is a landmine outside of the ring that is wrapped in barbwire and when you touch it explodes, thier is also commonly sheets of glass, and or tacks underneath the barbie). Only on American WWE televised events you do not see this type of wrestling. But if you where to take every wrestler who is pro and look at their wrestling history, you will se that they have done some sort of â€œBackyardâ€ Wrestling, even the Legends of Wrestling. Youâ€™re a real moron to talk about something that you clearly donâ€™t know anything about at all. Maybe you should have been aborted, because I doubt you are doing anything productive with your life.

â€œHow professional could you people possibly have been if you had no consideration for some one elseâ€™s health? For Christ sakes I have seen some one lit on fire!â€
I bet you take pride in watching someone on fire donâ€™t you? But really this comment above is completely irrelevant to anything. That was said, and you also contradicted yourself with this. Iâ€™m not going to bother explaining how, because since you where to ignorant and typed up the crap you did. You wouldnâ€™t even understand if I posted pictures pointing it out.

â€œMay God spare the day that some one gets fatally or permanently injured because I would hate to hear about a teenager dieing or being paralyzed by his freak show friends and hobbies.â€
Name me one person who has died from â€œBackyardâ€ Wrestling, then once you have name me all the people you know who have died, and have been injured from playing football in highschool, and college.
I can tell you this I started an organization to help â€œBackyardâ€ Wrestlers around the world (BYWbackyardwrestling) which helps the wrestlers find schools, find federations, other wrestlers, and how to go about things in a safer way. And I ask everyone who wishes to wrestle, pro, or â€œBackyardâ€ to get training, PRO TRAINING for not only your safety and your opponents safety, but another way to cover yourself incase of injury.
But I have a question for you do you play any sports? Baseball, football, basket ball, golf, table tennis, ect? And if so where you professionally trained in this? Or do you wear, and or use the proper equipment up to the State Athletic Commissions standards? I doubt you do.

â€œOK now you showed people how â€œcrazyâ€ you people are. How convincing do you sound now as you try to persuade me/every one that all that garbage isnâ€™t yours? To tell you the truth guy, youâ€™re not convincing any oneâ€¦the slightest.â€
You not to convincing on intelligent you are, I hope you donâ€™t have a kid either. Because with your belittling style of talk, youâ€™re a pathetic person, who really has no use in their world. You talk as such, as if you where some kind of mongoloid who is using a speak and spell. Are you the missing link?

â€œAnd here is a suggestion for all the young adults (and i say adults loosely) who say â€œif we donâ€™t have wrestling we donâ€™t have anything.â€ Uhhh try looking for a decent job for yourselves on the weekends or make a band or something. Itâ€™s a lot better than making fake names and wearing costumes in back weeds of Gerritsen. Heck it might even make you people look and sound intelligent.â€
So you are saying that our hobby is stupid, and that we need to get better jobs? Please Iâ€™m a Graphic Designer, and I do â€œBackyardâ€ Wrestling for fun as a hobby, as anyone would do. You know you ever heard of the term Weekend Warrior? Yes we would apply â€œWeekend Warriorâ€ to that 30-50 year old man who goes and plays football out in the park with his friends/neighbors every weekend. Now most of which are not in the greatest of shape (oh has highschool/college football days passed them by) and are not wearing any equipment, and odds are that they where trained to play football. And had high hopes and thought to themselves that they where prospects in the NFL. Now they look like MORONS, in your words and very unintelligent to you?

â€œOn that note I leave with this to say. Iâ€™m actually happy you all got a summons, I delighted that your little freak show is out of the neighborhood, and I really canâ€™t wait for the day you all grow up and realize that you were degenerates for the better half of your lives.â€
Why? Not like that stopped anything. â€œBackyardâ€ Wrestling has been going on in Gerritsen for years, long before IBW came around in 1999. And their where other Federations during IBW in GB, and their will be BYW feds around long after they are gone. You forget to notice that their fans of past BYW feds in GB, present, and future. And those little kids watching will go on to make their own federations, so I guess your children or your neighbors children are all part of this freak show and or future events. Question, how old are you? Cause I would like to tear into your lifestyle, and pick a part what you do to see how you have grown up and realized how much of a degenerate you really are. I mean no common sense adult, who has any real importance would not be talking the way you have about us using such downrated talk. You sound like real trash, a real system failure you are.
Also I have only been wrestling for 3 years, and I started in IBW 2 years ago. Before that I was in another â€œBackyardâ€ Federation in Gerritsen GCW (Gerritsen Championship Wrestling). So I have not been wrestling for that long, as most of the other guys in IBW. And even those who once did â€œBackyardâ€ in Gerritsen.

But I wish you the most Happiest of Holidays.
And one awesome New Year
;)

This is honestly not my business… although… I discovered this while looking for a way to build my own Ring for a Back Yard Fed. I am starting… I am Static X, a Back Yard wrestler in Several Backyard Feds. This is just me but if I IBW or whatever are just a couple of guys full-filing their passion until they get $3,000 bucks to go pro.. Leave them alone… The fire was starting by a couple of Scum bag punks who were hi, or drunk and vulnerable to have a little fun. if any of you guys have any problem with Back yard wrestling… DEAL WITH IT… We do what we do because we love the sport!!!… Not to have accidents like this… People have passions, whether it be Video Games, Working 24/7, Jacking off 80 times a day, Wrestling, or Whatever… You love to do what you love to do… WE LOVE WRESTLING… Not you, not nobody will stop us, from what we cherish… —Just saying… IBW guys… Send me a message on Youtube, and maybe we can talk.. I’d like to book a couple of you guys for some shows…